Bye, bye £200m

With the Environment Minister pondering savings in councillor’s allowances, the Social Development Minister, Margaret Ritchie was wondering where £200m has disappeared to.

No, it wasn’t lost, misplaced or spent on MLA’s allowances. It was just that darned credit crunch!

Seems that “land sales” over the next two years, which had been predicted to be £100m a year, were not going to happen - leaving a gaping hole in the Social Development’s budget.

Now, of course not all of these anticipated land sales were to Housing Executive tenants seeking a ‘foot on the housing ladder’, but a fair amount were meant to be.

So, an SDLP Minster has been left with not enough money to help the poorest in society because not enough working class people are shedding the shackles of tenancy to become mortgage holders. Mortgages that are payable to banks, who some might say should shoulder some of the blame for the current credit crunch, global downturn, recession etc.